The paper looks at the topic of how "participating in democracy" is conceptualized in the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) and how the results of the 2016 study can be interpreted in light of the conflicting tendencies between aiming for implementing inclusive practices implied by policies for an education for all while at the same time confronting problems with access, increasing segregation, inequality and differentiation within the Swedish educational system. In an international perspective, and in contrast to some of the other large-scale comparative tests such as PISA, Sweden shows outstanding results regarding democracy education and scored in the top group of ICCS together with other Nordic countries and Taiwan (Skolverket 2017). The survey shows also some shortcomings regarding schools’ inability to compensate for inequalities in socio-economic background because there are significant differences between how children from different social backgrounds understand their possibilities for democratic participation and trust in democracy. Significant differences could also be shown in relation to gender. The stark differences in the perception of possibilities for democratic participation and influence seem to contrast with the high level of knowledge about democracy displayed by Swedish students according to the 2016 survey. The gap between students learning about democracy and feeling trust and possibilities for participating in democracy can be related to the growing educational segregation and hierarchical division between schools in Sweden since the 1990’s. It becomes harder for schools to “compensate for society”, as Basil Bernstein said. This contrasts with parallel demand for educational spaces where all students have the opportunity to explore and practice democracy in an inclusive (and differentiated) educational system, which is required by law and stressed in the curriculum (LGR22).

One of the issues the report points towards is that in the current climate of neoliberal individualization and increasing segregation in the educational sector in Sweden (and other countries), legally binding demands for inclusion and an education for all seem to be paradoxically countered by the developments produced on the ground. In order to understand these results better, the paper will first explore the meaning attached to and the conceptual framing of “democracy”, “democratic practices in education” and “democratic participation” which can be distilled from the study design of the ICCS. Which philosophical notions can be used to work through the mixture of Deweyan, Habermasian and Mouffian strands of understanding democratic education in the survey? What are the implications of these conceptual underpinnings for an interpretation of the results of the ICCS, in particular for the Swedish context, but also in a wider European perspective? How can we understand the philosophical and theoretical tensions between the framing of “learning about democracy” and “democratic participation” in relation to the strife for an education for all? And last, but not least, which kind of conceptual framing of inclusive education or an “education for all” is implicit in the ICCS? One consequence of exploring the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of the way in which the study interprets democracy is that we can arrive at a better understanding at how the demand for differentiation in the name of inclusion might need to be complemented with more outspoken efforts at creating preconditions for solidary relationships between students (be that from similar and different backgrounds). Furthermore, it highlights how the focus might need to shift from primarily epistemic aims of education to reactivate concern with the social aims of education in order to keep democratic education and education for democracy and the fostering of democratic citizens alive in a meaningful sense.

The paper is part of a larger-scale project, but in the present proposal I will focus on presenting the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of the study as well as the implications of our interpretation of its results for political philosophy of education. At the moment the analysis refers mainly to the ICCS 2016 as well as the analysis of the shift in the study design for its 2022 variant. The goal with the adaptation of the study's design between 2016 and 2022 was to give more place to questions of sustainability, digitalization of life worlds and heterogeneity in society. One of the questions regards the theoretical outlook and conceptual framing of “democracy”, “democratic practices in education” and “democratic participation” which becomes visible in the study’s design in 2016 and 2022 respectively. Another central focus lies on how the shift towards a heightened sensitivity to “heterogeneity” is being interpreted in the design for the most recent study design. In light of the obligation by Swedish law and curriculum to offer differentiations and adjustments of the educational setting and pedagogical practices so as to provide optimal conditions for all students’ abilities and needs, it will be of particular interest how “special needs” are conceptualized and observed in the 2022 study design. The results of the latest study will be published in December 2023 and a critical analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of the understanding of “democracy”, “democratic participation” and “heterogeneity” will provide a useful lens for how we will be able to interpret and learn from the results in the Swedish context and beyond. The main methodological approach is a conceptual analysis of notions relating to democracy and democratic participation in relation to important philosophical approaches in the field of philosophy of education as well as current literature in political philosophy. I will relate to the work of John Dewey, Jürgen Habermas, Chantal Mouffe, Axel Honneth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stanley Cavell, Rahel Jaeggi, and Carl Anders Säfström amongst others.

The results of 2016 ICCS have been presented and analyzed from different national perspectives and in a considerable number of previous reports and articles. The purpose of the present paper is to contribute with a specifically philosophical analysis of the study design as well as the interpretation of its results. This will be able to shed light on some of the paradoxes and complexities which were mentioned but not understood and explored in-depth in previous studies (e.g. Abs et al. 2020; Deimel et al. 2020; Skolverket 2017). Furthermore, by looking at the philosophical and conceptual underpinning of the study I hope to contribute with philosophical arguments for why the strife for an education for all requires us to re-focus on the social aims of education and to broaden the current understanding of the epistemic aims of education. I will also contribute to the existing discussion by showing how we can think about the framing of "participating of democracy" in new and creative ways with the help of Honneth (2022) and Säfström (2022).

Abs, H. J., Hahn-Laudenberg, K., Deimel, D. & Ziemes, J. (2020). “Zum Stand der Vorbereitung auf die Demokratie. Die International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2016”, in: UNIKATE 55 – Heft Bildungsforschung 2020. Deimel, D., Hoskins, B. & Abs, H. J. (2020). “How Do Schools Affect Inequalities in Political Participation: Compensation of Social Disadvantage or Provision of Differential Access?”, in: Educational Psychology, 40(2), pp. 146–166. Honneth, A. (2022). "The Invisible Rebellion: Working People Under the New Capitalist Economy", in: Crisis under Critique. Columbia University Press, pp. 387-402. Säfström, C. A. (2022). A Pedagogy of Equality in a Time of Unrest. Routledge. Skolverket (2017). ICCS 2016. Kunskaper, värderingar och engagemang i medborgar- demokrati- och samhällsfrågor hos svenska 14-åringar i ett internationellt perspektiv. Stockholm Skolverket.